This year Idris Elba’s appeared in Prometheus, played Nelson Mandela in a soon-to-be-released biopic and he’s rounding out 2012 as the co-director and star of Mumford & Sons’ latest music video.

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Made with the help of screenwriter Dan Cadan, Elba’s directorial debut is an intense, emotional and artfully-shot affair, which compliments the sophistication of Mumford & Sons’ music.

In a statement issued along with the video, the band welcomed Elba’s involvement. They said: “We are, quite obviously, huge fans of Idris Elba’s acting work, as pretty much anyone can agree he’s the most badass British actor since Richard Briars. So we trusted him as the director for our latest video.

“We’ve been fortunate to work with some great directors in the past, but we’ve always been uncomfortable with the process of making music videos. We’ve never really enjoyed being in them, unless they involve live performance.

“Talking to Idris and Dan about making a video that we’re not in made it a lot more fun to think about. They went off and wrote the treatment after our ale-infused conversation in a pub in London, and what they directed, we are proud to present as: ‘Lover of the Light.’”

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Lover of the Light is taken from Mumford and Sons’ second allbum, Babel, which has sold over a million copies worldwide since its release in September.